by
The Great Forest and Other Love Stories is a collection of short stories, with various settings, including an alien planet, an imaginary country, and places in Virginia, and the end of the world. These gay love stories explore the growth of relationships, and the negotiations of various complications and challenges.
Publisher: JMS Books, LLC
Editors:
Genres:
Tropes: Aliens as God, Band of Misfits, Benevolent Aliens, Interstellar Travel, Psionic Powers, Quest
Word Count: 68538
Setting: United States, alien planet
Languages Available: English
Tropes: Aliens as God, Band of Misfits, Benevolent Aliens, Interstellar Travel, Psionic Powers, Quest
Word Count: 68538
Setting: United States, alien planet
Languages Available: English
Excerpt from the title story, “The Great Forest”:
Chesapeake Air and Spaceport, North Terminal, Interplanetary Concourse A
READ MOREThe sun shimmered on the water, as the train pulled into the Chesapeake Air and Spaceport RR station. He gathered his things and walked out onto a winding path, into a garden of dwarf sugar maples and ash trees. The path led him over a little bridge and a stream, and lavender star-shaped flowers. He stopped there to collect himself, to remember what his therapists had taught him, Alana on Avalon, and Gavin and Julia, at Blue Ridge. Deep breaths, center and focus on the safe, on the gurgle of the stream below his feet, the star-shaped flowers, blooming by the water. Interrupt his fear-talk looping, be present now. The main building of the spaceport was straight ahead. The building seemed almost made of sunlight and water. Sea turtles, eels, dolphins, and sea horses seemed to be swimming inside its walls.
Inside, the spaceport would be filled with people from all across Terra, from who knew how many HC planets. And aliens. Strangers, all of them. Breathe in for three, hold for four, release for five. Center. Through the sliding glassteel doors, follow the signs to the ticket kiosks. Everybody was busy, going, coming. Edvard was just one more young human.
He could do this, and he had done it. He could do it again. He could hear Luc telling him that, as he touched him, kissed him.
I’m coming.
No answer.
Scattered trees inside, fountains and pools. Whoever designed the spaceport must have wanted it to look as if it was part of the bay itself. Water currents and tree-shapes in the metal and glassteel, the beams, and the afternoon sun visible in a great skylight over the departure lobby. Were those real birds flying overhead? Edvard caught the off-world accents he knew as he walked—Avalonian, Jardinero, New Scandinavian. A trio of enhanced chimpanzees, clearly traveling on business. He tried to stare at the nest of Kalsons traveling together, with their pointed ears, white-gold hair, and skin. Like Luc and his father. There were a few Kalsons like Manon with skin a darker gold, hair, a deep brown. He stepped back, as did everyone around him, at who he saw next coming down the concourse. Even though the Second Interstellar War had ended thirty-three standard years ago, clearly not enough time had passed for any Zoki to walk through the one of the largest spaceports on the North American east coast without armed HC security. No one had forgotten how many thousands of Wertyngeris had either died or were put in hibernacula for years, or how many of the frozen had been thawed and eaten. No one had forgotten how many HC soldiers died in the war. Yes, the war had ended with a palace coup, led by the Zoki crown princess. She had immediately offered reparations for the atrocities on Wertynger, and they had been paid, and were still being paid.
Edvard watched as the reptilian Zoki, all dressed in white, with ashes on their forehead, walked silently through the spaceport, staring at the floor. According to the treaty ending the war, the Zoki had to publicly atone for eating sentient life. The crown princess, now empress, had suggested fifty Terran standard years of shame and public penance. She had acknowledged that not all Zoki had known or participated, but the government she had overthrown had known, and it had had wide popular support.
Never again.
Someone spat on the floor as the Zoki and their guards walked past. He wondered if fifty Terran standard would be enough penance.
Edvard stepped in front of a ticket kiosk beside a family which was clearly emigrating. Everybody seemed to be carrying some sort of luggage, the three kids, the two dads. He inserted his passport and Universal ID into the kiosk, and selected shuttle to the station, star service to Wertynger, Next available ship, leaving Union Station. An option for stasis for the three week trip in hyperspace? Maybe after week one. Micro-cabin, no, too claustrophobic. Single double, Family? Single. It felt like forever for funds verification. Ding! Transaction complete. Please proceed to Concourse B, Gate 29, shuttle already boarding. Proceed to gate, please have ID and passport ready.
He had done it.
COLLAPSEKristin F. on Rainbow Book Reviews wrote:I felt very targeted by this book--and that's not a complaint. Anthologies are, for me, difficult to review, because they have multiple parts which can't be simply included in some blank opinion. As the title suggests, every part of this collection is about love, but suggests a sameness that fails to represent the literary variety and emotional range these works offer. It is important to understand that love stories don't always have happy endings. That's one reason I found myself in tears more than once.
Rochelle is very good with characters, and each of the people who populate these works felt fully rounded and unique as I imagined them in the reading.
Drinking the Moon is a beautiful word-picture about creation--or maybe self-creation. Inspired by a line from a poem by Sufi mystic Rumi, it is deceptively simple--and all the more moving for that. I think it sets the tone for the entire book.
The Great Forest is the title piece and also the longest story here. It is really a sort of sci-fi/magical fantasy that takes place in what I call a "happy post-apocalyptic" world. It is an adventure and a love story and fooled me into thinking all the stories in the book would end that way. Two boys of very different backgrounds meet in school, and it is a meeting that will change both their lives.
On the Radio is a short fantasy piece that felt, to me, like an elaboration of "Drinking the Moon." It is darker than the word-picture, with a distinct paranormal eeriness to it. It is an allegorical story of facing one's truth and through that finding what one yearns for.
Second Cup took me by surprise. The title suggested something to me that I knew couldn't be right--and yet it was exactly what the author uses to flip the story upside down. An enormously successful young writer has to confront his boyfriend and an angel in order to understand what he must do. It was the epilogue in this one that made me cry--in a good way.
Susurrus is the second longest piece in the collection. It has all the trappings of a romantic magical fantasy, but a deeply moving message about the blindness of love and the unseen consequences that come from wielding power selfishly, even with the best of intentions.
Snowfall made me weep as well. It is a short piece about the end of the world--which comes not with a bang or a whimper, but with love.
Silver Rising s poignant and moving, mixing science fiction with magical spirituality. Its singular moment of exaltation is a striking blend of triumph and loss.
The Tale of Robert and Phillip and the Bookstore is a kind of fable about two old men who have built a life together that anyone (me, for sure) would appreciate and even envy. It addresses head-on a truth that I write about in my own memoir: there are no happy endings in this life, because someone always ends up alone. This made me cry, too, because it resonated in an entirely personal way for me.
Warren Rochelle uses many of the tropes that we have come to know and love in the varied genres of gay love story today. He does something quite different with them, and that makes this collection worth reading.
5 Stars.
Rainbow Book Reviews, January 27, 2025, by Kris
We all want to be loved, and to love. But finding true and lasting love is not always easy, and sometimes comes at a cost. Sometimes, love hurts. Sometimes, the obstacles separating us from true love may seem insurmountable. In this collection by best-selling gay fantasy author Warren Rochelle, love is found next door as well as twelve lightyears away.In the title story, Edvard is the accident, the unplanned child. His mother is the Ambassador of the Human Community to the Great Forest on the planet Wertynger, a forest of sentient trees. His father is the Embassy’s chief legal counsel. His golden brothers are on other worlds in the Human Community, bound for success. Not Edvard, to the despair of his parents. When he meets Luc, who loves Ed for who he is, everything changes. His parents separate them, sending Edvard to school lightyears away on Earth. Ed promises to come back and marry Luc. When Luc is taken by the minions of the Holy Trees, their love is sorely tested. Happily ever after is no longer certain. It may even be impossible.
Throughout other stories, love is tested in many ways. Can a man trust a mysterious voice on the radio, calling for him? What if your lover asks you to make a curse? Or if your husband is hearing voices in his dreams, voices somehow connected to a comet? Can promises made in one universe be kept in another? Will these lovers have a happily ever after, or at least, for now?
This is a collection of seven warm and heartfelt short stories. Each one envelops what it means to love and be in love, all with a slight science fiction, fantasy, or theology twist.
The Great Forest
Young love that blossoms to something mature; young love that refuses to listen to “those who know better.” Love that transcends the galaxy. As a sci-fi aficionado and a forester by degree, the Great Forest concept was both fascinating and a bit creepy. When this finished, I wanted more.On The Radio
Conforming to society, being dissatisfied with conforming, what happens when you follow the voice on the radio…Second Cup
Oh so, so interesting! A delightful twist utilizing theology and alternate realities.Susurrus
To what lengths will people go to for those they love? Two intertwined plot lines set against a manufactured curse – what it means to BE in love, what it means to be loved. Well written, with strong hints of the 2020-2021 pandemic which left me a bit… I dunno, uncomfortable? Still, strong characters, strong plot, interesting conclusion.Snowfall
More an essay, a train of thought, “what if…” story.Silver Rising
Science fiction – believe and bring those you love. Along the lines of Close Encounters of the Third Kind, just without the music.The Tale of Robert and Phillip and the Bookstore
Touching on theology but harkening back to the days of Greek gods and the power of devotion. I appreciated how this was an established couple, having just celebrated thirty years of togetherness with family and friends. Not sure I quite cared for the ending of this one, but it did elicit a teary emotion, and I always give kudos to an author when they can provoke strong emotional responses.Warren Rochelle is a new-to-me author and based off what I read here, I would read more by them. Interesting and engaging topics, varied couples ranging from new love to established love, and an ability to make the reader think a bit. Overall, a delightful collection of stories.
